Mainly Norfolk: English
Folk and Other Good Music

Fair Mary of Wallington / The Fair Maid of Wallington

June Tabor sang the Child Ballad The Fair Maid of Wallington
unaccompanied in 1974 on the fundraiser album
The First Folk Review Record.
The album's sleeve notes commented:

The tune was learned from Maddy Prior, and the words collated by June Tabor
from various versions in Child.

This track was also included in 2005 on her 4 CD anthology
Always. The album's booklet
notes that this song gave the name to June and Maddy's duo album
Silly Sisters,
even though June couldn't remember if they ever sang it together.

James Findlay sang Fair Maid of Wallington
in 2011 on his Fellside CD
Sport and Play.
He noted:

This is the most miserable song about death during childbirth on the album,
telling the story of seven sisters and a gynaecological nightmare!
This localised Northumberland ballad appears in text from 1775.

Cath and Phil Tyler sang Wallington
in 2018 on their CD
The Ox ad the Ax.
They also play this song with the group Dark Northumbrian.

Lyrics

June Tabor sings The Fair Maid of Wallington

When we were silly sisters, seven sisters were so mild,
Five went to bride bed and five are dead with child.

Then it's up spoke young Mary and it's single she would bide,
For if ever she was in man's bed, the same death she would die.

“Oh it's take no vows, Mary, for fear they broken be,
For there is a knight in Wallington asking good will of thee.”

“Oh if there is a knight, mother, asking good will of me,
Then it's in three quarters of a year you may bury me.”

Well, she had not been in Wallington three quarters and a day
Till she was as big with baby as any lady.

“Oh is there not a boy in this town that would win up hosen and shoen?”
Then it's up spoke a page-boy, “Your errand I will run!”

“Give respects to my mother as she sits in her chair of stone;
Ask her how she likes the news of seven to have but one.”

When her mother she heard the news in anger cried she
And she's kicked the table with her foot and kicked it with her knee.

Then she's called for her waiting-maid and also her stable-groom:
“Come fetch me my cloak and go saddle up the brown.”

But when they came to Wallington and into Wallington Hall
There was four and twenty ladies that let the tears down fall.

And her daughter, she had a scope into her cheek and into her chin,
All for to keep her sweet life till her mother she come in.

Now she's taken a razor that was both sharp and fine
And from out of her left side she's took the heir to Wallington.

“Oh, there is a race in Wallington, and that I rue full sore
Though the cradle it be well spread up, the bride-bed is left bare.”

And when we were silly sisters, seven sisters were so mild,
Five went to bride bed and five are dead with child.

Then it's up spoke young Mary and it's single she would bide,
For if ever she was in man's bed, the same death she would die.